


when he sees me

by lilaliacs



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Donghyuck centric, Emotional Constipation, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, classical pianist!donghyuck, hes trying, jeno has pericings and tattoos for no plot relevant reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26289211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilaliacs/pseuds/lilaliacs
Summary: There’s a guy standing in the room now, and in Donghyuck’s hazy mind just after waking up he is pieced together more as an inventory list of a guy. An assortment of a guy. An IKEA instructions pamphlet, little cartoon figures building a guy, no words, just pictures.(in which jeno makes bad coffee and donghyuck asks if anyone is going to project their relationship issues on that and does not wait for an answer)
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Lee Jeno
Comments: 10
Kudos: 77
Collections: NOHYUCK FEST: 정답!





	when he sees me

**Author's Note:**

> i had a lot of fun writing this and i hope you have a lot of fun reading!!!
> 
> (the title is from the musical waitress, i rec listen to the song its ridiculous)

“I need your professional opinion,” Donghyuck says, serious, composed, just the right amount of urgent. 

Still, Renjun snorts. “On?” 

Donghyuck glares, sighs, picks up his cup of coffee, takes a sip, burns his tongue. This conversation is not going how he planned. “So, there’s this guy I’m seeing—” 

“I don’t know if I’m flattered or insulted that you consider me a professional at seeing guys.” 

Again, Donghyuck glares, and Renjun gestures for him to continue. 

He decides to start over. “You like lists,” He states. 

“Now  _ that _ is an area of expertise I will gladly accept.”

“I need you to help me make a list of pros and cons.” 

Renjun blinks. “About the guy you’re seeing?” 

“Yes.” 

Renjun holds his gaze. Donghyuck doesn’t blink. He is mentally categorising the arguments for why this isn’t an entirely unnecessary request, why his life pretty much depends on it, why Renjun  _ owes _ him because he set him up with Mark Lee that one time. 

In the end, Renjun’s curiosity and affinity for judging other people’s business wins. He spreads out his napkin, plucks a pen from his bag and looks at Donghyuck expectantly. 

“Tell me everything, from the beginning.” 

The beginning.  _ The Beginning _ . 

Donghyuck doesn’t know if he particularly likes the beginning. Not because he has mixed feelings about it, just because he doesn’t quite remember it. 

So. The beginning. In Donghyuck’s books. 

* * *

Donghyuck opens his eyes, and his first thought is:  _ I don’t have a cat. _

He doesn’t, never had, because growing up his parents didn’t allow pets, and he always liked dogs better anyways, but now his apartment building doesn’t allow pets and he doesn’t really have the time for any.

And yet. 

And yet there is a cat curled up right next to Donghyuck’s head as he blinks the remnants of sleep out of his eyes. It’s a pretty cat, colourful fur, a little fat, staring at him with less disdain than other cats he has known. That’s Donghyuck’s second thought. 

The third is that his head hurts. The fourth that he doesn’t know where he is. (Somewhere with a cat.) 

The fifth is that there’s a door opening behind him, and then he turns around and he doesn’t think anything for a moment. Just looks. And blinks. And looks some more. 

There’s a guy standing in the room now, and in Donghyuck’s hazy mind just after waking up he is pieced together more as an inventory list of a guy. An assortment of a guy. An IKEA instructions pamphlet, little cartoon figures building a guy, no words, just pictures. 

There’s a shock of dark hair, slightly messy, a little wet still from a shower. There’s a face (Two eyes, a little tired but round and pretty and framed with impossibly long lashes. A mouth, lips looking slightly bruised. A nose, straight, something glinting— metal. A nose ring. A mole high on one cheek bone.) There’s a torso, no shirt,multiple small red bruises on a neck and across a chest Donghyuck would like to take a nap on. Two arms. Scratch that. Two _Arms,_ dark lines on them,inked, some writing, Donghyuck can’t make out any details. Two hands, holding a steaming mug each. Sweatpants, hanging low on hips (More red bruises.) Fuzzy socks. 

Donghyuck is about to close the IKEA pamphlet but then: A voice. A little scratchy, low, pleasant.

“Did she wake you up?” 

Curse IKEA. No one can understand this. What is it supposed to mean?

A meow, right by Donghyuck’s head. The  _ cat. _

“No, I was up,” Donghyuck says. though she might as well have woken him up. There’s more pressing matters. Such as the one taking the few steps over to the bed and sitting down on the edge of it, facing Donghyuck, holding out one of the mugs to him. 

“I didn’t know how you take your coffee, I guessed.” 

He sits up and takes the mug, takes a sip. It’s terrible. He takes another sip. “Thanks,” He hums, and then it’s silent. Not even the cat is making any noise anymore, but she has moved to curl up by the guy’s thigh, still gazing at Donghyuck. 

Donghyuck takes a few more sips of the coffee, tries to put his finger on what’s wrong with it. It’s instant, and he’s a snob, he knows this, but that’s not the biggest problem. 

“There’s like 5 sugars in there,” The guy blurts. “I think.” 

“You think?” 

“I’m not entirely awake yet,” He replies, taking a huge gulp of his own coffee as if to prove his point. He scrunches up his nose. The metal glints again. “Yeah, this is definitely too sweet.” 

Donghyuck huffs a laugh. “A little,” He admits. 

“Sorry.” 

“No worries.” 

* * *

“I don’t know about you,” Renjun says, “But some of us have places to be. Can we speed this up?” 

Donghyuck blinks at him, unimpressed. Renjun gestures at his napkin. 

“You slept with a guy when you were drunk. Pros: He is super hot, parentheses, piercings, tattoos, abs. He has pets, parentheses, cat, nicer than other cats. He made you coffee. Cons: the coffee was a little bad.” Renjun looks up at him. “When was this?” 

“Like a month ago.” 

Renjun nods, and glances at his watch. “Okay, I don’t have time to listen to you detailing every thought you had about this guy over the last month. Important highlights only, please.” 

Donghyuck rolls his eyes. “Nice to know you can prioritise.” 

Renjun hums. “You should give it a try.” 

* * *

“Hey,” Donghyuck blurts, and hopes Jeno can hear him, because his phone is squeezed in between his shoulder and his chin as he shoves sheet music into a folder, and the folder into his messenger bag at the same time. “I promise I’m not standing you up, I just got kind of caught up and lost track of time but I’m on my way!”

“No worries,” Jeno laughs at the other end. “You can make it up to me by paying for the latte I already ordered.” 

“Joke’s on you,” Donghyuck huffs, finally closing his bag and switching his phone to his free hand while shoving the door of his practice studio open with his shoulder. “I was going to pay anyways.” 

Jeno laughs again, and even though Donghyuck is running down a hallway, and his manager is sitting at her desk, watching after him making a fool out of himself, he can’t help the grin spreading on his own face. 

It’s still there when he falls into the chair opposite of Jeno. Jeno’s coffee cup is still mostly full, so Donghyuck counts his entrance as fashionably late. Jeno doesn’t comment further, just pushes a little plate in his direction, with a blueberry muffin on it. 

“I got you this,” he explains. “Or, well,  _ you _ got you this, but I ordered it before we established that you’re paying.” 

It’s not much of a joke at all, but Donghyuck giggles. He  _ giggles _ . 

* * *

“This is disgusting,” Renjun decides. “I’m obsessed with it.” 

Donghyuck takes this as encouragement and he opens his mouth to tell Renjun about the sunlight that had filtered through the window and the way it had hit Jeno’s face just so and how he fed Jeno a bit of the blueberry muffin with a spoon. 

Renjun is quicker. “Can we move on to your problem now?” 

“I never said I had a problem.” 

“You always have some kind of problem. I wouldn’t be writing on this napkin if you didn’t have a problem.” 

Donghyuck grumbles. But he treasures Renjun, as a friend, and he knows that Renjun has to get back to work soon, so he has mercy. 

* * *

After sunlight had filtered through windows and blueberry muffins were fed, somehow they had started talking about music. 

_ Somehow _ meaning Donghyuck practically jumped at the opportunity to talk about music. 

“I played in a band in high school,” Jeno muses and Donghyuck swoons. 

“What do you play?” He asks. 

“Guitar. And  _ played _ , past tense, we sucked and I haven’t touched a guitar in about three years.” 

Donghyuck swoons a little less, but he can  _ work _ with this. 

It’s Jeno’s turn to ask a question. “Do you play?” 

Donghyuck nods. “Piano, mainly.” 

It sounds very casual for the fact that he is talking about his livelihood. But that’s alright. Casual is what everything is supposed to sound like on a first date with the most beautiful guy you have ever met. 

Jeno nods appraisingly. “Nice. My sister’s girlfriend plays too.” He laughs. “She’s kind of a snob about it.” 

  
  


_ Snob _ is a word Donghyuck does not like. Mostly because it’s what his friends call him every time he dares to open his mouth with anything to say about the score of the movie someone else chose. But Jeno has that cute little mole under his eye that Renjun decidedly does not have so he decides to let it slide. 

“What’s her name?” He asks. “Maybe I know her!”

Jeno shakes his head. “I would be surprised, I don’t think she runs in the circle of pianists who are also normal people. She’s, like, super serious about it, wants to go to Julliard next year. Or maybe somewhere in Russia.” He stares off into space for a second. “Italy? Doesn’t matter. She’s stuck up and a  _ professional _ and one time she refused to speak to me for an entire dinner because  _ I _ refused to pronounce  _ Chopin _ correctly.” He laughs. “Classical musicians, you know how it is.” 

Something must have fallen in Donghyuck’s face, because Jeno backtracks, albeit in the wrong direction: “Don’t get me wrong I love her! She’s fun, she was the only person who went to see that sad lesbian french movie with me and she didn’t laugh at me when I teared up at that beach scene.” 

Donghyuck nods. “How did you…” He starts, and his voice is a little weak. He’s being very dramatic. “”How did you pronounce Chopin?” 

“ _ Choppin’”  _ Jeno grins. He mimes a cutting board with his hands. “Like choppin’ onions. Hyunjin hated it, it was hilarious.” 

Now Donghyuck could feel his entire face fall. “Hyunjin? As in Kim Hyunjin?” 

“Yeah! So you  _ do _ know her. Small world!” Jeno muses and promptly directs his attention to the complementary cookie that had been served with his latte. 

He doesn’t seem to realise that he has caused several problems for Donghyuck, all of which appear in an itemised list before his mind’s eye. 

* * *

“ _ First _ ,” Renjun repeats from what Donghyuck had made him write down on his napkin, “ _ He thinks classical musicians are the scum of the world. _ Hyuck, I don’t think he said that— “

“Second!” Donghyuck falls in. “I can never meet his family because then his sister will bring Kim Hyunjin and she  _ hates _ me because of that one award I got instead of her two years ago. And also she will expose me to him as everything he hates.” 

“I really don’t think—” 

“And third: A part of me, and I don’t know how big it is, is irrevocably ready to drop my entire career for another one of his terrible coffees.” 

Renjun just blinks at him. Donghyuck blinks back. “I know how big the part is.” He corrects. “It’s very big.” 

Renjun closes his eyes for a long moment. Then he opens them again, puts his pen down, puts his hands together gently and points them at Donghyuck. “Okay, Bella,” He starts. “So I don’t actually think you have a problem.” 

Donghyuck feels his entire face scrunch up in protest, but Renjun is already continuing.

“I think you have commitment issues. Which, I will allow, is a problem, but none I can solve.” He goes to pack his things and leave to go to work and let Donghyuck  _ die.  _

“Wait!” Donghyuck exclaims, reaching for Renjun’s arm and forcing him to look at his best puppy eyes. “Please help me,” he begs. “Please. Please.” 

“I cannot help you,” Renjun says, yanking his arm free. “If you will not help yourself.” He points to the napkin. “Look at that. And then call the dude. You’re a big boy, you can do this.” 

And with that, he leaves Donghyuck alone to succumb to his demons. 

* * *

“This is exciting,” Jeno muses as Donghyuck pushes the button for the elevator up to his apartment. 

“What is?” He asks, distantly. He is way to nervous for the fact that this is his home turf. 

“I’ve never been to your place!” Jeno elaborates. “I was beginning to think you were hiding something from me.” 

“Like what?” Donghyuck laughs as they step into the elevator.

Jeno shrugs exaggeratedly. “I don’t know! A wife and kids! A secret collection of Baby Anabelle memorabilia! A super villain’s lair!” 

Donghyuck nods seriously. “You got me, it’s all three.” 

“Knew it,” Jeno chimes as they come to a stop and step into a hallway. 

As Donghyuck fumbles with his keys for much longer than necessary, Jeno is telling him about something that happened on his way here. 

“... And then I think the other guy started laughing? Or coughing, it was really hard to tell.” The door opens. “And then another woman started getting involved and it was an entire— Oh wow.” 

They step into Donghyuck’s living room, which isn’t much of a living room at all. His couch was pushed to the far wall, most of the space taken up by a piano. It’s not as big, and certainly not as expensive as the one he has in his studio, but it’s the best that would fit in his apartment, and it’s  _ his.  _ A keyboard takes up the wall directly next to the entrance, where there should be a clothing rack or something along those lines. (Most of Donghyuck’s jackets and scarves were stored on the couch instead.) Another wall is entirely taken up by a shelf holding folders of sheet music and countless notebooks, mostly full of Donghyuck’s own compositions and each maybe even more of a priced possession to him than the piano itself. 

Jeno looks around in awe. “You said you played,” He muses. “You didn’t say you  _ played. _ ” 

“Not in so many words,” Donghyuck confirms. He tries to not make it too obvious that he is gouging Jeno’s every reaction. 

“So you do this professionally?” Jeno asks, while walking over to the piano and perching on the bench. 

“Yeah,” Donghyuck all but squeaks, because he is a very simple man, with very simple affinities, and seeing Jeno sit at his piano is throwing his mind into a loop. He nearly forgets why he’s so nervous. 

But then Jeno’s wide eyes meet his.

“Oh, no,” Jeno starts. And this is it then. Fuck Renjun, trying to blame this all on Donghyuck’s committment issues. He was  _ right _ , Jeno hates his guts now, and this is entirely reasonable and not a weird conclusion to come to and his worries had been valid and he is about to be dumped and called a snob and he will never see Jeno again and he will never find love and— 

“I made so many dumb jokes about Hyunjin,” Jeno continues and he looks absolutely horrified. “And about classical musicians and stuff. I’m so sorry, oh my god.” 

“It’s—” Donghyuck blinks. “It’s okay.” Because, getting down to it, it was. And getting down to it, no matter what he thought literal seconds ago, maybe Renjun was right. “You didn’t know.” 

“Still!” Jeno exclaims. “This is important to you!” 

Donghyuck doesn’t reply to this, instead just walks over and sits down on the bench next to Jeno. It’s a little cramped, their thighs pressed up to each other, Jeno’s wide eyes boring holes into the side of Donghyuck’s face as he wipes some imaginary dust from the top of the piano. 

And Renjun was  _ right _ . Donghyuck’s gonna buy him an edible arrangement. He’s going to go to the florist down the street and he’s going to ask how to say THANKS FOR THE REALITY CHECK. In caps. With flowers.

“Can you play me something?” Jeno pulls him out of his thoughts. 

Donghyuck meets his eyes now, confused. 

“You don’t like classical music,” He laughs. 

Jeno’s eyes stay serious, intense in a way Donghyuck doesn’t think he’s seen before. 

(He has, if he digs way deep into his memories. The night they met, Jeno’s door falling shut behind them, hands everywhere, lips everywhere and Jeno’s eyes speaking of a little more than what was going on.)

“But you do,” He says, simple like that. 

And it  _ is _ simple like that, Donghyuck thinks. It doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to be scary. He doesn’t have to think so much. 

So he doesn’t, just grabs Jeno’s face with both hands and pulls him in. 

It’s short, not much more than an intent press of lips, but it feels like so much more, with the way that Donghyuck keeps Jeno close after pulling away again, holds his gaze even as he feels his cheeks heat up and hurt a little from the wide smile he has on. 

“I really like you,” He says quietly, in this little bit of space that is just for them. And it’s easy. 

Jeno laughs softly, eyes warm and leans back in again and it’s easy. After what feels like a small eternity, Jeno leans his head against Donghyuck’s shoulder and watches his fingers dance over the keys and everything, the things he knows and the things that are knew, they all seem incredibly easy like this.

Because IKEA instructions aren’t actually hard to understand. That’s their point. And Donghyuck thinks he’s ready to build a fucking shelf. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> fun tidbits i would have fit in if i had another 6 months to write on this: loona's heejin is jeno's sister, and hyunjin does indeed hate donghyuck but they get over it i promise
> 
> three months into the relationship jeno still doesnt know how donghyuck takes his coffee
> 
> mark is a super successful musical prodigy so donghyuck knows him bc of Business but they're also friends hence donghyuck introducing renjun
> 
> ideally this would have 10k more words and angst but i thought id do us all a favour :)


End file.
